Import of mobile devices surges in Nepal in 1st quarter

Nepal imported much more mobile phones in the first quarter of the 2021-22 fiscal year starting in mid-July, worth nearly half of the total imports of the last fiscal year, data from Nepal's Department of Customs revealed.

Mobile devices worth 17.17 billion Nepali rupees (142.86 million U.S. dollars) were imported during the first three months of the current fiscal year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, accounting for 46.53 per cent of the total imports in the previous fiscal year.

In contrast, Nepal imported 11.1 billion rupees (92.36 million dollars) of mobile devices in the first quarter of the last fiscal year, according to the department.

"The pandemic forced many people to buy mobile phones for study and work, creating more demands for mobile devices in the country," Punya Bikram Khadka, information officer with the department, told Xinhua.

"Even poor people who could not afford to buy mobile phones were forced to buy them to enable their children to study online as schools had been closed for months due to COVID-19," Khadka said.

While some schools were reopened in the Kathmandu Valley in mid-September, several have remained closed in central (ANI/Xinhua)

( With inputs from ANI )